Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

All good things must come to an end. With the winding down of the Flora of North America (FNA) project and the completion of the final volume specifically handled by the Institute, the Hunt Institute FNA Editorial Center closed at the end of June, and Senior Technical Editor Mary Ann Schmidt has retired. Lucky, lucky Mary Ann will finally get her wish to spend more real face time with her grandchildren. Robert Kiger recently noted: "Mary Ann joined the Institute staff in 1999 as a technical editor, and later senior technical editor, for the Flora of North America project, for which the Institute is one of the editorial centers. Her excellent language and organizational abilities and her skills in dealing with complex botanical data and terminology have been significant factors contributing to the excellence of the published Flora."

Before joining the Institute Mary Ann was Managing Editor, Scientific Publications at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. She was the administrator of the scientific publishing program, which included Annals of Carnegie Museum, Bulletin of Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Carnegie Museum of Natural History Special Publications. I asked on which FNA volumes she worked, and she was the technical editor on volumes 5, 6, 8, 14, 26 and partially on volumes 12 and 13. That is a bunch of treatments! But more to the point Mary Ann had to "deal" with a large number of quirky, curmudgeonly and cranky taxonomists.

MAS (as she is known at the Institute) was our go-to person for technical scientific/botanical questions and a good joke. We will miss you!

T. D. Jacobsen
Director